Bloc Party
The hot U.K. quartet stops by Fender headquarters to chat …

Party time: (from left) Lissak, Okereke, Tong, Moakes.  Photo by Simon White

Among the new school of fiery young British bands busting up the charts and putting guitars back at the forefront where they belong, one of the most popular is Essex-based quartet Bloc Party, who have had quite a busy year in the wake of their hit 2005 debut album, Silent Alarm.

To wit, the album went platinum in the U.K. and was named by venerable kingpin Brit music mag New Musical Express as 2005 album of the year; never mind that it spawned a U.K. top five single with “So Here We Are” and sent three more—“Banquet,” “Helicopter” and “Pioneers” spiking into the U.K. top 20. Not bad for a first album.

Not surprisingly then, Bloc party was tapped to bring the love to the year’s biggest U.S. alt-rock concert smorgasbord, the seventh annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, April 29-30 in the sun-drenched California metropolis of Indio. On the way west just two days before the behemoth Coachella proceedings, the band pulled into the Phoenix area for a somewhat-smaller-in-comparison club show, where Party officials—guitarist/vocalist Kele Okereke, guitarist Russell Lissack, bassist Gordon Moakes and drummer Matt Tong—very kindly paid a call on Fender headquarters.

And whilst the lads were on the premises that afternoon, Fender News cleverly managed to strike up a brief conversation with the rhythm section, Moakes and Tong, when nobody else was looking. Party on …


FN: How’s the tour going so far? Any memorable moments to share?
GM: It’s good! These dates help us warm up for Coachella. We haven’t played live for a while, so we didn’t want to go in blindly. We thought we’d set up a few key shows to “settle in” a bit, and get used to the heat and jetlag.

MT: The Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) show was an anomaly. The crowd was great. It was a really nice show. I quite enjoyed myself. It was outside, so it was great to see all the people and buildings. There was a really nice atmosphere there.

Rock Bloc: Moakes onstage. Photo by Mark Bartholomew

FN: How does it feel to go from a 1,000-seat venue to a 100,000-plus festival like Coachella?
GM: It’s exciting. These are the kind of venues that I like to play. We’ve moved up a bit from the little clubs. However, it is always nice to get outdoors and play in front of a big crowd.


FN: Do you prepare for it any differently?
GM: I think you have to really watch it … that you’re properly hydrated. And that you’re not too whacked from the heat. You drink less alcohol (laughs)!


FN: What Fender instruments are you playing on this tour?
GM: Well, we have our favorites, which, for me, is the P Bass®. It’s actually a Mexican P Bass that I play. Kele and Russell play different types of Telecasters. I can’t say exactly what exact models. I know Russell just bought one in Japan. They’re all new; they’re not vintage, and are pretty good stock.


FN: Why did you get into P Bass guitars?
GM: I played a Precision copy when I was starting out. It was the standard and it was cheap. But, of course it makes all the difference when you move up to the proper Precision. I just remember the guy in the shop when I was looking at new bass guitars. I’ve got this new Metallic Blue one. It’s kind of Public Image Limited, and that’s good enough for me—I’m a big P.I.L. fan, and I love Jah Wobble!

Of course, we have Fender Deluxe amps as well. I remember when we were looking to get proper amps. We were rehearsing on Denmark St., which is this famous street in London where all the instrument shops are. Simon, our manager, went out to get some amps. He came back with a Fender Deluxe and said, “This is the best one.” Then he went to get another one for Russell, and tried to get something different so he and Kele weren’t both playing the same thing. Then he came back with another Fender Deluxe amp. He said, “I tried all the amps in the shops and this is obviously the best one!” That’s our sound. It’s a fairly clean Fender Deluxe sound.


FN: How did you get into music in the first place? How did you two go from being beginning musicians to playing festival dates?
MT: We’re not sure exactly what we did right, but we just kind of envisioned the way it was going to sound. That was the most important thing (to us). We never had loads of advisors telling us, “You should do this; you should do that.” We just stuck to the idea that we had and people just seemed to love it. We’re kind of lucky with the sounds and the songs that we came up with. They seemed to strike a chord with people. That’s the “X” factor. You can’t really manipulate with marketing and management. In the end, you have to have something that people will buy into or relate to. We’ve been really lucky. Every step of the way, we’ve found more and more people wanted to be a part of it.


FN: You’ve mentioned in previous interviews that drums are the most important part of what you do. If so, what role do you feel the guitar and bass have in your music?
GM: We always start with the drums. Even today, during sound check. If we have an idea for a song, we don’t really work on the song until the drums are on a working basis.

MT: He’s speaking like I’m holding a knife to his throat (laughs)!


FN: The rhythm section plays such a strong role in the band. How did that came about?
GM: I think that was the problem that Kele and Russell had from the beginning, because they really formed the band—the two of them on guitar. The songs were all right, in theory, with the guitars working together. But I think they felt that the songs were missing something. Then I came into the band, and when we found Matt, we knew that we had the band that we wanted to have.

Bloc Party.  Photo by Simon White

FN: You’ve been working on a new album. How do your songs come together?
MT: Most of the songs for the new album are pretty much written during sound checks. The previous album, we took about a year and a half of just writing stuff every week. We’d rehearse every week and then play a gig on the weekend.

GM: We’ve gotten to a new position, where there are songs that we’ll record that we haven’t played live at all. It’s a bit counter-intuitive. We like to play them before we record them, so we get the feel, or dynamic of the song. When you’re on tour, it changes how you work.


FN: What should fans expect from your next album and the rest of 2006?
GM: This time, in a week or two, we’ll be recording our next album in Ireland. We’ll be back in the States at the end of July to try out the new stuff and get the ball rolling. I don’t think the record will appear this year, but we will be working it.


FN: Kele and Russell complement each other well. How do they build their guitar parts?
GM: What we all do is about space. When Kele’s got a part, we listen to how it can be complemented with a melodic or rhythmic part. And, Russell always tries to find something that fits beside it or against it. He’s always trying to find the right “space” for his part. Sometimes the parts clash, or he didn’t do enough, or it’s too similar. We do it in an intuitive way. He’s got his part usually within 10 minutes of working on a song. Unless you tell him how you would like the part, tone or mood to go down. He can shift it if you ask him to.


FN: It’s not that much work?
GM: There’s a lot of “emotional” work. You can write a part and get quite attached to it. And then you have to not be really “precious.”

MT: When we’ve got the right parts, everything comes together really quickly.

GM: It’s all about leaving stuff out and not overcrowding it … being prepared to take as much out. And the more you take out, the harder it is to keep the body of the song there.

The temptation, especially as you get better and better as a player, is to play to your ability and do as much as you can, in a way. But you have to be quite disciplined; especially Matt and I—we tend to lean towards stuff that’s a bit clever for the sake of it. But when you analyze it, you know, if it’s not necessary, just take it out.

MT: We don’t usually, though! We secretly want to be King Crimson (laughs)!



For more information on Bloc Party, visit www.blocparty.com.